The change comes as the White House and the Pentagon are showing increased sensitivity to the portrayal of U.S. casualties from the war in Iraq. Officials have barred media coverage of the bodies of troops arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, in that case also insisting that a long-ignored rule be enforced.

"It concerns me, because you can't understand the true cost of war if you can't see the amputees and the people who have been killed," said Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, a veterans group. "The results of war have to be witnessed at graveside, whether you like it or not."